For a while, it appeared that the Nigerian Armed Forces had won the fight against terrorism, especially Boko Haram insurgence. This, to a certain extent, had earned President Muhammadu Buhari accolades from several quarters and among his critics.
The development, however, took another dimension last Sunday when the supposedly wounded terror group ‘tickled’ Nigerians, especially the families of the Chibok Girls and concerned citizens. The sect released a new video purportedly showing some of the Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped from Chibok over two years ago, and the move for the girls to be traded with their detained fighters.
Though, the Federal Government said it was in touch with those claiming to be behind the undated video, which shows groups of girls in Islamic dress standing or sitting around a masked man armed with an assault rifle, it appears that concerned Nigerians, family and friends of the victims have lost their patience on what some critics described as ‘a lost battle to the enemy of the state’.
The mass kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls from Chibok in April 2014 provoked global outrage and brought unprecedented attention to Boko Haram and its bloody quest to create a fundamentalist state in northeastern Nigeria. A man wearing camouflage gear in the video called on the government to release Boko Haram fighters in exchange for the girls.
“They should immediately release our brethren in their custody,” the man said, warning that if the prisoners were not released, the government would never be able to rescue the girls.
“They should know that their children are still in our hands,” he said in the film posted on YouTube, that appears to show some women injured after an air strike.
The film, which was released a few days after embattled Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, denied claims that he had been replaced as the leader of the Nigeria-based terror group, made a lot of Nigerians, who had rated the country’s military over its counterparts in Africa, think otherwise.
While some believe that the military’s ability to fight terrorism is over-hyped, others think the present administration, like its predecessor, lack the political will to tame Boko Haram and free the school girls and others from the claws of the ‘vampires’.
Recall that about four months ago, the Federal Government told the nation that it had conquered the insurgents, following the shelling of the Sambisa forest, in the north-eastern part of the country.
It was even claimed that the key leaders of the Islamic sect had been wiped off in the attack that saw many of them surrendering to the superior firepower of the coalition of patriotic military personnel on that mission.
However, the recent video clip has vividly shown that someone somewhere is being economical with the truth.
Even then, the position of some experts on the matter has, in no way, helped issues. While the parents of the abducted girls are pleading with the government to, as a matter of urgency, swap some captured Boko Haram members with the abducted girls as a logical means to ending part of a logjam that has spanned two years, security experts argue that the country should not compromise in a matter of such magnitude. Yet, experts are of the opinion that government must use whatever powers at its disposal to locate where the abducted girls are.
It is our opinion that defeating the Boko Haram, as the government would want us to believe, without the location and liberation of the Chibok girls, is like granting independence to a country while holding on to its freedom flag. As it were, now, the assertion that Boko Haram had been finally suppressed, crushed and subdued without the physical liberation of the poor girls to rejoin their family members, would be nothing but a hoax.
Therefore, the military should go beyond rhetoric/propaganda on the issue of Boko Haram, bearing in mind that it was that same matter that led to the arms procurement scandal rocking the military till date.
Beyond this, it would do well for the government, at this critical stage, to reappraise the military Intelligence, overhaul it for the purpose of performance, and bring it back to its past glory.
